A Few of my Favorite Things

I suspect that everyone has a few things they would call their favorites. And I surely have mine. Let's begin with physical things. My favorite form of exercise by far is swmming. I try to get to the YMCA twice a week to swim laps for half an hour. That means sixteen laps or 32 lengths of the pool. My favorite Y is located on Blaisdell and 34th Street in Minneapolis. I also love to swim in the ocean when I visit my friends in Virginia Beach. Nothing feels as good as diving into the oncoming waves and feeling the water push me onto shore. After swimming, my next favorite physical exercise is walking. This is something I can do anytime and anywhere.

My favorite vacation destination besides Virginia Beach is my hometown of Marburg-an-der-Lahn where I was born some 79 years ago. The last time I visited there was 17 years ago in the spring of 2007. Marburg is located about 50 Kilometers North of Frankfurt. It is a mid-sized university town with a beautiful castle on top of a hill as well as a picturesque river. During my last visit, I stayed at a farmhouse in Wershausen, a village near Marburg. There

I visited with Heinrich Stey, the son of the folks who took in my mom and dad in 1947, shortly I was adopted.

My favorite things to do all involve the arts. I love to sing, play music, and write songs. My favorite instrument is the autoharp which I learned to play in 1979. My teacher was Stevie Beck of The Prairie Home Companion Show. In fact, Garrison Keillor's show was my favorite radio broadcast. I learned so many songs by listening to that show. I loved Garrison's meandering tales from Lake Wobegon, as well as Tom Keith's wonderfully quirky sound-effects.

Close behind music comes writing, which I've enjoyed doing ever since I wrote that story about Tom Sawyer for Miss Helen Gerwig's eighth grade English class at Walnut Hills Junior High. Since that time, I've written poetry, journal entries, short stories, blogs, and even a full-length play called Cathect Adult! My play describes the traumatic experiences I endured while attending a controversial day-treatment program in the mid-eighties. And I've been able to publish three memoirs.

A third favorite arts activity is storytelling to which I was introduced in 1983 when I started attending a monthly storytelling group called Storyfront. There, I not only learned to listen to others' stories, but also started telling my own for the first time in my life. Eventually, I began hosting other storytellers at Seward Cafe where we met every Friday evening for almost ten years. I loved getting to know the other tellers and listening to their wide variety of tales.

Food has always been an important part of my life. My favorite dishes are ice cream, pizza, German-style Broetchen topped with fruit jams and jellies, and soups. I love to cook and bake. I love making Italian dishes like spaghetti and meatballs and lasagna, as well as that Russian recipe of borscht. I also like stir-fry veggies with fried rice. Are you getting hungry yet? For dessert, I love baking pies, especially cherry, apple, blueberry, and peach.

Since I'm a very spiritual person, I love to attend church services. My favorite church is Walker United Methodist of which I've been a member since 1986. There, I got to know some of my closest friends. There, I've also attended all kinds of support groups like their weekly meditation group which takes place before the morning service. Back in the summer of 1979, I learned to practice Yoga which I've kept up ever since.

Because maintaining my mental health has been so important to me, I've seen any number of individual therapists, as well as attended a wide variety of therapy groups. I think my favorite therapy program is the MHealth Fairview 55 Plus Senior program which I've attended five times. I've found their therapists to be very knowledgeable and supportive. I have also benefited a lot from a course of DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) and from several ARMHS (Adult Rehab Mental Health Services) workers. And I've been seeing my favorite psychiatrist for more than seven years.

I could go on and on about all of the other favorite things in my life. I'm sure it would take me an entire book. But I think I'll stop while I'm ahead. I'm just grateful to be alive, in good physical and mental health, with an opportunity to do the things I enjoy, and with enough good friends to make my life worthwhile.